“Just saying,” Draeg offered.
I believe I WILL take offense at your discourtesy, Baccat said. Good night and sweet dreams, FamWoman; I will see you at breakfast tomorrow. Good night, Hedgenettle. I will see you tomorrow, too. Perhaps before I visit My friends at the Turquoise House, perhaps not.
With a final swish of his tail, her Fam disappeared. She received the impression that he wished to hunt on the grounds, and test his new personal armor.
Draeg closed the gate after her, made sure the lock caught and the estate spellshields had engaged before piercing her with his stare. “What do you mean you can’t teleport into the Residence? I’d have thought you’d have plenty of Flair for that.” And the more he scrutinized her, the more she thought she sensed him scanning her for psi power. She pulled her mental shields tight and his brows came down.
Should she answer him or not? Earlier she’d treated him honestly, had made the determination to do so. Now she decided to continue that policy.
As far as she knew he hadn’t lied to her, as her Family had, as the Residence had, so she would meet truth with truth, trust with trust. Her hands went to her sleeves, to tuck inside, but she wasn’t wearing a tunic or gown with traditional sleeves, so she let her arms drop to her sides and walked ahead of the stableman on the path.
“Are you going to answer me, Lady?” he asked gruffly.
Now she felt tingles on her neck, but not alarm, no. More like . . . sensuality? Awareness that she was a woman and a man followed her closely, within her personal space. A man looked at her as she walked. Yes, her heartbeat remained elevated. “Am I going to answer you?” she asked lightly, then threw a glance over her shoulder and found him within an arm’s length of touching. “To satisfy your curiosity?”
“That’s right. I’m curious why you don’t teleport into the Residence, why you sneak into the estate by a gate.”
It was best to learn the path in the dark, know every footstep . . . every potential hoof step. “Don’t you wonder where I’m going outside?” she asked, keeping a sharp eye on the small dirt trail that she and Baccat had beaten down over the last month.
He grunted. “You’re out exploring Druida City, of course, nothing else beyond the gate. Unless you’re meeting a gallant, a Nobleman, at his home in Noble Country.”
“No!” The very idea scandalized. “I never even thought of that!”
The ends of Draeg’s lips lifted. “Good. So why the gate?”
“Because the house is a Residence, of course.”
His head angled. “So?”
“So it can sense my excitement, the beats of my heart, the heat of my skin.” She halted at the top of the trail where it joined a wider dirt track she used when riding her stridebeasts. Draeg stopped short, his mouth hanging open.
“It would do that?”
Using a bit of the last of her Flair, she gestured at the bushes framing the path they’d come up to huddle closer together, moved leaves to cover the trail.
“It would do that?” Draeg repeated with some intensity.
She stared at him. “Of course. D’Yew Residence continually monitors me.”
“That doesn’t seem right.”
He took a few strides until he walked beside her. “So that’s why you don’t ’port directly to your rooms.”
She felt his gaze.
“You still look a little flushed and excited to me,” he said. She thought he stared at where her pulse might show in her throat.
“I am. And the Family and Residence think I’m restoring boats and the boathouse. Which I mostly did two months ago. No one will want to use the boats in the river for another month or two, depending upon the weather.”
“Instead you’re exploring Druida City.”
“That’s right.” She turned to face him. “I’m supposed to stay on the estate, always.” She raised her brows. “Are you going to tell my Family or the Residence that I’m slipping away?”
Another grunt and a minute of silence. “This is a good job. I like it.” He nodded once. “And I don’t like to lie.” A longer pause. “I will lie, if need be, for a good cause, and you remember that, but I don’t like to. If they ask me, I’ll tell them I saw you go in and out of the gate.”
She laughed in relief. “I doubt they’ll ask you.”
“That’s my reading of the situation. So, since you’re still excited, what are you going to do? It’s late.”
“Not quite my bedtime, and probably no one but the Residence will check on me tonight.” She sighed; that was a huge boon. “Everyone will be occupied with their own affairs.”
Draeg snorted.
“What?” she asked.
He waved a hand. “Nothing. So you’ve covered yourself.” He cleared his throat. “Covered your tracks with the boathouse thing. You’re a crafty lady.” He paused. “That was a compliment.”
“Thank you.” Instead of taking the graveled path wide enough for a glider toward the house, she kept straight on a bridle path that accommodated two stridebeasts.
“Where are we going and what are you gonna do?” he asked.
“I’m going to a grove to calm myself and meditate.”
“Meditate!”
She smiled and slanted him a glance. He seemed so vital she didn’t think he often sat still. “That’s right. It works for me.” After several more meters, she angled off the track to another path, this one kept intentionally grassy. She slowed her steps and began breathing rhythmically, first five breaths in and out, then six, until she came to a small, young yew grove, the most minor grove on the estate of trees that were of the Family name. Like most everything else she prized, it was ignored by her Family.
Her eyes dampened at the thought of leaving this place and the other spiritual groves that welcomed her. Inhale. Exhale. Remind herself of the future, of cuttings she’d take of these trees and those from the main grove of Yews four centuries old.
Hold the thought of the future, but calmly. Keep her intentions foremost, good solid plans she could carry out. That would ground her, stabilize her emotions.
At the end of her meditation session, when she’d teleport to her rooms, she’d remember how she’d restored the boats, and let those images lift to the forefront of her mind, where any Family member in passing, any sly spy, could sense them.
Draeg cleared his throat, and she jolted a bit; she’d almost forgotten he’d accompanied her. At least her mind and her emotions had been focused on doing what she must, on being what she must. Her body had continued to sense—and react with a warm flush under her skin—to the man who’d remained near.
She really had to school her body. Take charge of the emotions and the bodily functions would follow. Or still the body and the emotions would follow. Either way would work, but it had to be done, and rather quickly.
She could do it.
Head lifted, gliding the way she’d been taught that a lady did, Lori went to the middle of the small clearing, with sufficient space for two people, white and silver in the twinmoonslight and starlight. The next air she breathed in had a taint of midnight freezing, the last traces of the warmer evening air gone. Saving only enough Flair for a final teleportation, she set up a small weathershield over the clearing. Big enough for two.
Without looking at Draeg, she slid one leg down to the ground, body following in an easy movement, and crossed her legs.
Draeg watched the woman and yearned. Made sure to angle his body so his stiffening arousal wouldn’t show. If he sat on the ground he’d be cold enough to discipline his body before it warmed under the weathershield.
Dipping his head at her, his voice gruff, he asked, “You permit me to join you in your meditation, Lady?”
“It’s been a while since you meditated, hasn’t it?” she asked quietly, but a small tint of inflection told him that she didn’t believe he’d ever meditated, and certainly not in a semiformal ritual, or with others.
She was so wrong. He’d spent septhours meditating. Had done so d
aily with his mentor, Tab Holly, for years. Until Tab had died . . . just two months after Draeg had lost his natural parents, when he was seventeen. Tab had been old, and his parents had died of a sickness and were HeartMates so they’d gone together as HeartMates often did. They’d all abandoned him for the Wheel of Stars and their next lives. He’d taken it very personally.
Now, of course, Draeg realized that Tab would be disappointed in him, since Draeg couldn’t remember the last time he’d simply sat and meditated by himself—four years? Five? He’d even struggled during the quiet times of Family rituals, when linked to the rest of the Blackthorns.
But GrandLady D’Yew had given him permission to join her, so he did, also sliding into the tailor position. Best that he sat next to her, though separate a good half meter, instead of in front of her. Less temptation to look at her. And, yeah, the frozen ground chilled his ass, a good thing, too.
She stared at him for a moment, and then, on a long sigh, she relaxed her muscles. He saw it happen, and more drastically than the fighters in such sessions in The Green Knight Fencing and Fighting Salon. Still looking at him, her lashes slowly dropped, and at the sight he got a little jolt.
Here she was, near midnight, sitting in a dark grove with a stranger, and she trusted him. Him, Draeg Betony-Blackthorn, after no more than a septhour of real time spent together.
What if he’d been a villain? At the notion, alarm surged through him. In the distance, a cat yowled. Baccat, the Fam, linked to D’Yew and himself. The noise relieved and reassured him. Her wary Fam would have alerted her to a villain.
D’Yew sat quietly, true, but she’d be aware of everything around her, of the scents and the sounds, if she’d reached a mindful trance state, and this estate was hers. If she wanted to, she could pound him to mush with tree limbs or rocks, call the horses to kill him, or any intruder, with their hooves. Raise up any and all of the feral animals that lived here against him, and probably the domesticated ones as well.
“Draaay-eeggk.” She elongated his name like other exasperated females in his life. “You’re not meditating.”
He grunted. “You’re right, it’s been a while,” he mumbled.
“Oh.” Her eyelids opened, pupils wide. “Of course.”
He kept from rolling his own eyes at her obvious naiveté. She didn’t think he’d ever meditated, but every noble did. She didn’t seem to realize how expensive his clothes were. His tough leathers had been treated at every step of their creation with top preservative and weather spells, and tailored specifically for him. He deduced that none of her folk wore leathers, and, as he’d suspected, the Family had no designated guards. Luck for him, but he disapproved strongly of a FirstFamily having no guards.
She stared into his eyes, her lips quirked up in an encouraging smile. “Let’s try again.”
“Yeah, sure.” He lifted his butt and swept out the rock and a damn solid branchlet from under him.
With a nod, her lashes lowered. Within seconds she’d calmed, descended into a slower brainwave pattern. She obviously had a great deal of experience of relaxing into serenity . . . to control her emotions so the Residence couldn’t read her well.
Draeg believed that a Residence always observing a person’s vital statistics was just wrong, and next time he was in T’Blackthorn Residence, he’d ask it. He was pretty sure the Residences had rules like that.
D’Yew’s breathing became regular, then hitched once, just before she said, “I yet feel your tension, Draeg Hedgenettle, and your breathing isn’t rhythmic . . . or as slow and deep as it should be, considering your chest area.”
He stared at her chest area, breasts limned by the twinmoonslight falling on her clothing.
Yep, his breath caught, too. Her thick, well-made, but old winter tunic didn’t show even the hint of her nipples in the cold, but he could imagine them.
The warmth of the spring day had long since vanished and the night was becoming decidedly frosty. Better get this done.
He lowered his eyelids but kept them open a crack, and his gaze fixed on her, his head turned instead of ahead. She had the straightest spine he’d ever seen. As he watched, her breath became deeper and slower.
He picked up the pattern of her breathing—steady and to the count of eight. When she paused on the last of her exhale, began with the inhale, he joined her, matched her.
After a moment of seeing her sink further into a trance and breathing with her, he let his mind flow.
For tonight, and figuring he’d track D’Yew in the future and share more time with her, he went back to basics. He did what had worked for him as an awkward teen when he’d begun training. He hummed a quiet note only audible to himself. Yeah, he was a physical guy, and the feeling of the vibration in his chest and throat and mouth helped him center and focus.
He continued for minutes, lashes drifting closed, until the sounds of her rustling, and dropping the weathershield, brought him to the surface. Her serene face and gleaming eyes showed her even temper, a woman ready to have her being evaluated by a nosy Residence. Hiding nothing, but hiding everything. A clever young woman.
Draeg wasn’t quite ready to finish, but they’d be better off inside. The cold had turned from a nip to a toothy bite.
Though his body stayed loose, his mind knotted at the idea of the so-far-as-he’d-seen uptight Yew Family teaching this D’Yew, Loridana Itha, meditation so well.
“You are very practiced, Lady,” he said, his voice rough with disuse and the chill air. He coughed. “And you look . . . happy.”
She nodded. “The old stableman . . . long, long before you, taught me how to meditate.” Her brow creased a bit. “Like my nurse, I don’t think he belonged to the Yew Family.” Her chin raised. “But he was a good man.”
“I’m sure.”
“He said if a person worked with animals, he or she should have complete inner calm.”
“So you learned meditation.”
“Yes. And he said that a person’s natural state is peaceful and joyful.” She grinned, the first true lighthearted smile he’d seen, undimmed by any thought or feelings of responsibility. Spreading her arms, she said, “I feel happy and serene, and I spread that through the estate and my animal friends and they gave it back to me. They give me support so that I can face with equanimity the Residence and any Family member who might check up on me.” A tiny sigh. “In truth, though everyone is outwardly calm in the Residence, they are not very joyful, and my delight rubs away.” Again she smiled, this one like she had a secret.
The peace of the grove and the meditation swept through his blood. He rose in a smooth movement and took the long pace to her, then offered his hand. She stared up at him, eyes shadowed, but with the twinmoonslight softly falling on her face, her innocent expression.
Unexpected passion surged and he wanted to kiss her . . . more, take her back to his rooms over the stable and show her the intimacy between a man and a woman.
But he knew to his bones that he would be showing her, and for the first time, how a man and a woman came together.
Though with every passing moment he learned who Loridana Itha Valerian D’Yew was, and she was certainly appealing, they had only met that afternoon. He might be recklessly ready to explore this young woman, even reveal portions of himself; she was not.
Then she set her fingers into his, and his jaw flexed at the sizzle down his nerves, making him aware of all the long months since the last time he’d had sex with a woman.
“Thank you,” she said as she stood.
“Thank you.” Without thought, he pulled her smoothly to him, bent his head slightly for a sweet kiss, brushed her lips with his. More than a jolt this time, a throbbing anguished need as her plush mouth trembled under his. He yanked her against his hot and hard body, one hand on her upper back, the other curved around her small, tight butt, and Lord and Lady, she felt fine next to his favorite muscle. His hard erection.
Angling his head, he swept his tongue across the seam of her lips,
teasing her mouth open, taking her warm and panting breath into his own, finally hearing little mews from her that twined desire tightly through him. Her arms wrapped around him and her hips tilted, caressing his cock, and his mind nearly exploded and the hand not clamping her butt insinuated between them and covered her breast.
She gasped and her mouth left his as she pulled away, gasped again. “I . . .”
He sucked in cold air that chilled down his throat to his lungs. What was he doing? This woman was an innocent.
She opened her mouth, closed it, gave him a wild look, and winked away.
Again he stood, stunned, wondering what had happened. Twice in a day . . . a day and a night . . . this young woman had dazed him.
Seven
Lori had just enough presence of mind to teleport just outside a door that the Residence didn’t much watch—the secondary southern door closest to the river and the boathouse she was supposed to have been restoring.
No problem with energy and Flair, she trembled from it—from the passion Draeg Hedgenettle had ignited inside her. He’d kissed her. He’d touched her, her bottom and her . . . her breast. He’d kissed her. His tongue had been in her mouth!
Oh, Lady and Lord, Lord and Lady. The firestorm of . . . lust . . . seemed to warm the air around her and her breath came too fast, and perhaps too hot, too.
She’d never enjoyed anything as much as kissing Draeg. So invigorating. She might, now, understand some books she’d read. Her cheeks felt hot and she put her hands on them. Warm to her fingers. Warmer than her fingers. And the air she drew in with each short and choppy breath frosted her throat.
Her body pulsed with heat and . . . desire for the man’s touch, the man’s lips, the man’s tongue. Her scattered emotions bubbled, her thoughts fragmented.
Except one. She’d teleported away without a word, had stared at him with her mouth hanging open and just gone. He must think her a foolish girl.
Next time—yes, there would be a next time—she’d be more sophisticated. She could hardly be less. Anyway, she’d be ready to participate and . . . and not let fear of the unknown scare her away.
Heart Legacy Page 6